Born in 1940, David Robbins published his first short story at the age of 19. He has won several awards for his health and development reporting, as well as the 1986 CNA Award for his travel book The 29th Parallel, in which he traversed South Africa along that line of latitude. His other books include After the Dance: Travels in a Democratic South Africa, Aspects of Africa and Inside the Last Outpost, about KwaZulu-Natal. His first collection of short fiction, The Wall, was published in 1989, and his second, Discovering Fire (Porcupine Press) has just come out. These nine stories are set against the backdrop of South Africa’s recent past, but Robbins is more concerned with how his characters respond to events and each other.
Describe yourself in a sentence.
A writer enthralled by the complexities of the human condition — and the complexities of Africa.
Describe your book in a sentence.
A collection of short stories that explores the impact of public events on private responses.
Describe your ideal reader.
A person who reads for pleasure but who also appreciates the value of belonging to a literate tradition that keeps us in touch with a wide range of human experience.
What was the originating idea for the book?
Being short stories, there are many, but a central motif in all of them has been the experience of being South African in turbulent times.
Describe the writing and publishing process. How long did it take?
Fiction is usually a lengthy process. Some of the stories were written decades ago and then put aside. The final rewriting and preparation took 12 months of non-continuous work.
Name some writers who inspire you, and why or how.
An important influence has been VS Naipaul for his essential seriousness (even pessimism) and mastery of subject matter and language. Closer to home, Doris Lessing and Nadine Gordimer come to mind, for their ability to evoke mood and to control the emotional content of their writing.
What are you reading at the moment?
I have just finished reading Janet Browne’s monumental biography of Charles Darwin. Now I’m reading several books on the wars in Angola (this relates to my next travel book, due for publication late in 2006), and a volume of English short stories selected in the early 1970s by literary critic Lord David Cecil.
Do you write by hand, or use a typewriter or computer?
I use a computer, but from copious hand-written notes.
What is the purpose of fiction?
I agree with EM Forster that fiction is at its most essential when it tells a story. Beneath or within this device there is scope to penetrate into those places of human experience and motivation that are hardly accessible to other literary genres.